The Sabbath’s relevance to the debate about origins

4. There is a repeated argument unless one believes in six recent literal 24-hour days of creation the validity of Scripture is undermined. Is this really true? We do lots of interpretation of stories in the Bible that are very literal and very concrete. No Adventist really literally believes Luke 16:19-31, where conversation goes on between heaven and hell. We call this a metaphor because it does not fit our theology. No one really takes Paul seriously that women should not be heard in church at all. It may not seem logical, but in truth, there are many Adventists who completely trust Scripture, are faithful to the Adventist message and do not accept six recent literal 24-hour days.

5. Creation is the first place we see Sabbath and there is a argument made that if the Creation story is not strictly literal the seventh day Sabbath is undermined. Some would even say destroyed. Fine. . . except that when non-Adventists argue against the seventh day Sabbath it is not on the basis of a non-literal reading of the creation account. As noted in number four above, there are many faithful Sabbath-keeping Adventists who question the traditional interpretation. You will find these people in almost every Adventist Church at least in North America. –Steve Moran

The Bible states that the earth was created in six days (Gen. 1:1 – 2:3). God hallowed the seventh day, the Sabbath, as a memorial to His creation: â€œBy the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day He rested from all his work. And God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating he had doneâ€ (Gen. 2:2, 3 NIV). (It is interesting that, whereas a day is the earth revolving on its own axis, a month is the moon passing through its phases, and a year is the earth circling the sun, the week has no natural reason for existence; it exists because God established it at the creation. Atheistic regimes, such as the French and Soviet revolutionaries, tried to substitute different cycles, but these all failed, and the seven day week remains a universal fixed cycle of time.)

After the Exodus from Egypt, when God was teaching the Israelites His laws, He used the manna to teach Sabbath observance. One dayâ€™s worth of manna was collected each morning, but it would not keep overnight (Ex. 16:15-20). On the sixth day, however, the Israelites were to collect two dayâ€™s worth of manna, and it would keep overnight and throughout the Sabbath day. Thus, they did not need to collect manna on Sabbath morning, and those who went out to collect it found none (Ex. 16:5, 6, 22-30).

In the fourth of the Ten Commandments, God commands us to observe the Sabbath: â€œRemember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your manservant or maidservant, nor your animals, nor the alien within your gates. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holyâ€ (Ex. 20: 8-11).

Accompanied by thunder and lightning, God descended to Mount Sinai and audibly spoke the Ten Commandments within the hearing of the entire congregation of Israel (Ex. 20:1-21; Deut. 4:10-13). God Himself inscribed the Ten Commandments on stone tablets (Deut. 4:13; Ex. 31:18). God did not take these extraordinary measures with any other of the laws and regulations He gave to the Israelites. Although Moses, in indignation at Israelâ€™s idolatry, smashed the original stone tablets, God commanded him to chisel out two more tablets, upon which God re-inscribed the Ten Commandments, again with His own finger (Ex. 34:1, 28; Deut. 10:1-4).

The new tablets, called the tablets of the Testimony, were placed inside the Ark of the Covenant, a wooden box overlain with gold, with a solid gold lid, called the mercy seat or atonement cover, affixed to which were two golden sculptures of cherubim with their wings overshadowing the middle (Ex. 34:29; 40:20; Deut. 10:5; Ex. 25:10-22). The ark was the most sacred article of furniture in the sanctuary. Only the Levites were allowed to carry it, one man was struck dead for touching it without authority, and seventy men of Beth-Shemesh were slain for looking inside it (Deut. 10:8; 2 Sam. 6:6, 7; 1 Sam. 6:19).

The ark was placed in the most sacred compartment of the sanctuary, the Most Holy Place. Ex. 26:33, 34. The visible manifestation of Godâ€™s presence, the glory of God sometimes called the â€œShekinah Glory,â€ was just above the ark, between the cherubim (Ex. 25:22; Lev. 16:2; 2 Sam. 6:2; Psalms 99:1; Ezek. 9:3). Only the high priest was allowed to look upon the ark, once a year on the Day of Atonement, and even on that day he could not enter without incense and the blood of a sacrifice (Lev. 16).

To summarize, the most sacred compartment of the sanctuary, the Most Holy Place, contained the most sacred article of furniture, the Ark of the Testimony. Above the Ark dwelt the visible glory of God, and within the Ark were the tablets of the Testimony. The tablets contained the Ten Commandments, in the middle of which is the Fourth Commandment, which contains Godâ€™s statement, written by His own finger, that He created the world and all its creatures in six days.
When we hold these facts in mind, a viable compromise between evolution and biblical Christianity is unimaginable. The Sabbath, with its rationale of a six-day creation and holy rest on the seventh day, is at the very center of the religion God prescribed for the Hebrews, and it is just this scriptural fact that evolution denies. The evolutionistâ€”theistic or atheisticâ€”denies Godâ€™s claim of having created the world in six days. The theistic evolutionist is forced to believe that God is playing some sort of practical joke. The integrity of Scripture is fatally undermined if we do not believe what God tells us about how He created the world.

But the Sabbath is undermined in a special way. It is true that those non-Adventist Christians who argue with Adventists about the continuing obligation to honor the Sabbath typically do not challenge the historicity of the creation week. But this is because non-Adventists likely to engage with Adventists on this issue are overwhelmingly likely to be conservative Christians with a high view Scripture; they think highly enough of Scripture to argue over exegesis and doctrine. By contrast, liberal Christians who doubt the historicity of the creation week have long since dismissed Scripture as a human document of largely historical relevance; they attend church, if at all, for cultural reasons. They increasingly have their counterparts in the Adventist Church.
But the undermining of the biblical worldview is not limited to the Sabbath doctrine. The evolutionistâ€”theistic or atheisticâ€”subscribes to conventional geological notions, interpreting the geologic column as the residue of hundreds of millions of years. He does not believe in a universal flood capable of depositing much of the column. He discounts Genesis chapters six through nine, which tell us that all humanity, all the land animals, and all the birds, with the exception of those on Noahâ€™s ark, were destroyed in a world wide flood that covered the tops of all the mountains on earth (Gen. 7:21-23).

The evolutionistâ€”theistic or atheisticâ€”places himself in opposition to Jesus Christ, who attests to the historical reality of the Flood:

As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. For in the days before the Flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark; and they knew nothing about what would happen until the Flood came and took them all away (Mat. 24:37-39; Luke 17: 26, 27).

Peter attests to the reality of the Flood, as does the author of Hebrews (2 Peter 2:5; 3:5, 7; Hebrews 11:7).

After the Flood, God made a covenant with Noah and the animals that He would never again destroy the world with water. The rainbow is the symbol of this covenant (Gen. 9:8-17). But the evolutionistâ€”theistic or atheisticâ€”denies that a worldwide flood ever occurred. For him, the Flood story, Noah, his ark, and Godâ€™s covenant sealed and symbolized by the rainbow, were all invented out of whole cloth.

In my previous article, I discussed how theistic evolution seriously erodes the doctrine of the Fall. Here, it is worth emphasizing that the biblical teaching that death entered the world because of sin (Rom. 5:12; Rom. 8:18-22) must bow before the belief system of the evolutionist. The geologic column shows the entombed remains of a large variety of animals, and, if interpreted according to evolutionary assumptions, shows that death reigned for hundreds of millions of years before man ever appeared on the scene. Thus, death, as a general phenomenon, cannot have been caused by sin and the Fall, and must be part of Godâ€™s planâ€”part of the creation that God declared â€œvery good.â€ Likewise, the Bible teaches that the animals were created to eat grass and other vegetation, not each other (Gen. 1:30). But for the evolutionistâ€”theistic or atheisticâ€”nature was â€œred in tooth and clawâ€ long before Adam sinned.

But we are not done yet. Evolutionismâ€”theistic or atheisticâ€”causes problems in the interpretation of biblical prophecy. â€œThe mission of the Seventh-day Adventist Church is to proclaim to all peoples the everlasting gospel of Godâ€™s love in the context of the three angels’ messages of Revelation 14:6-12 . . .” The first angel’s message is: “Fear God, and give glory to him; for the hour of his judgment is come: and worship him that made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters.” Adventists have always believed that this message speaks to our Adventist movement, with (1) our warning to the world that the investigative judgment in heaven has begun and (2) our call for the restoration of true worship on the Bible Sabbath, the Seventh-day Sabbath, which is Godâ€™s sign and seal as our Creator. Evolutionismâ€”theistic or atheisticâ€”causes problems with prophetic interpretation.

The doctrine of the six-day creation is not comparable to a single parable. The six-day creation forms the basis for the Sabbath, which is at the center of Godâ€™s moral law, written by Godâ€™s own finger. The Sabbath in turn forms the basis for the Adventist interpretation of the prophecies of Revelation. The literal Adam and his fall into sin create the need for a savior, and give meaning to Christâ€™s role as the second Adam, who redeemed what the first Adam lost. The literal worldwide flood, endorsed by the New Testament writers, provides the means of interpreting the geologic column as something other than hundreds of millions of years of suffering and death, all preceding Adamâ€™s sin.

By now it should be obvious how untrue is the claim that â€œthere are many Adventists who completely trust Scripture, are faithful to the Adventist message and do not accept six recent literal 24-hour days.â€ In fact, these Adventists do not completely trust Scripture. To the contrary, they trust human speculations about origins more than they trust the plain word of God, despite understanding, better than Christians of any other denomination, how crucial and integral are the Bibleâ€™s teachings on origins.

In the parable of â€œthe rich man and Lazarus,â€ Jesus is not attempting to describe the actual conditions in which people exist after their deaths but before the resurrection morning. But Jesusâ€™ parable has a point, and it is this: â€œIf they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the deadâ€ (Luke 16:31). If a person refuses to believe what Moses wrote about our origins, nothing is beyond the corrupting reach of their unbelief, which will ultimately prove fatal. â€œIf you believed Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote about me,â€ said Jesus, â€œBut since you do not believe what he wrote, how are you going to believe what I say?â€ (John 5:46-47).

24 thoughts on “The Sabbath’s relevance to the debate about origins”

An excellent summation of the self-evidently foundational issues by Bro. Read.

The statement by Steve Moran that, “You will find these people in almost every Adventist Church at least in North America” is patently false.

‘At least…?’ Is he implying that it could be so also in the world church? I have lived and worked in 21 churches in 7 different conferences in 4 different unions. Mr. Moran may be viewing the church through California glasses (I also worked in Northern, Central and Southern Cal.) – however, I’m not sure I would even characterize the membership of those conferences in this way.

Theistic evolutionists do indeed undermine the very foundations of the 4th commandment. A Seventh-day Darwinian, who by his very nature tampers with the 4th commandment, is no less ‘beastly’ than a Sunday-keeper supplanting the 7th with the 1st day (perhaps more so!). Seventh-day Darwinians are controverting the decalogue just as surely as the beast of Bible prophecy.

Of course Seventh-day Darwinians have probably also come to the conclusion that the traditional Adventist emphasis on ‘The Beast and his Mark'(including by course the deeper spiritual issues which accompany this emphasis) should also be relegated to the dust bin of fundamentalism.

The warnings of the word of God regarding the perils surrounding the Christian church belong to us today. As in the days of the apostles men tried by tradition and philosophy to destroy faith in the Scriptures, so today, by the pleasing sentiments of higher criticism, evolution, spiritualism, theosophy, and pantheism, the enemy of righteousness is seeking to lead souls into forbidden paths. To many the Bible is as a lamp without oil, because they have turned their minds into channels of speculative belief that bring misunderstanding and confusion. The work of higher criticism, in dissecting, conjecturing, reconstructing, is destroying faith in the Bible as a divine revelation. It is robbing God’s word of power to control, uplift, and inspire human lives. … {AA 474.1}

When God spake his law with an audible voice from Sinai, he introduced the Sabbath by saying, “Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.” He then declares definitely what shall be done on the six days, and what shall not be done on the seventh. He then, in giving the reason for thus observing the week, points them back to his example on the first seven days of time. “For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day, wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it.” This reason appears beautiful and forcible when we understand the record of creation to mean literal days. The first six days of each week are given to man in which to labor, because God employed the same period of the first week in the work of creation. The seventh day God has reserved as a day of rest, in commemoration of his rest during the same period of time after he had performed the work of creation in six days. {3SG 90.2}

But the infidel supposition, that the events of the first week required seven vast, indefinite periods for their accomplishment, strikes directly at the foundation of the Sabbath of the fourth commandment. It makes indefinite and obscure that which God has made very plain. It is the worst kind of infidelity; for with many who profess to believe the record of creation, it is infidelity in disguise. It charges God with commanding men to observe the week of seven literal days in commemoration of seven indefinite periods, which is unlike his dealings with mortals, and is an impeachment of his wisdom. {3SG 91.1}

Infidel geologists claim that the world is very much older than the Bible record makes it. They reject the Bible record, because of those things which are to them evidences from the earth itself, that the world has existed tens of thousands of years. And many who profess to believe the Bible record are at a loss to account for wonderful things which are found in the earth, with the view that creation week was only seven literal days, and that the world is now only about six thousand years old. These, to free themselves of difficulties thrown in their way by infidel geologists, adopt the view that the six days of creation were six vast, indefinite periods, and the day of God’s rest was another indefinite period; making senseless the fourth commandment of God’s holy law. Some eagerly receive this position, for it destroys the force of the fourth commandment, and they feel a freedom from its claims upon them…{3SG 91.2}

Exactly Dave, Jesus said that people SHOULD believe God’s Word, not that it was just some fairy tale, metaphor, or allegory. Jesus consistently told His followers to believe God’s Truth, not to try to make up some excuse NOT to believe it. Which is the opposite of what liberals do.

Steve Moranâ€™s comments serve to illustrate four classic ways sin effects all of us. When we understand these four universal effects of sin, we gain more understanding into ourselves as well as the words and actions of others.
1. Suspect
The honest person is trusting, but to a thief, everyone is a thief. The adulterer assumes everyone else commits adultery. The hypocrite imagines all others to be hypocrites. The evolutionists suspects that everyone else is a doubter. Evolutionists within the church attempt to portray the church as full of believers in evolution (â€œone in every churchâ€), La Sierra attempts to paint all Adventist schools as riddled with doubters.
But even if the charges were true, multitudes holding error do not transform the wrong into right. We do not to follow a multitude to do evil (Ex 23:2).
It is not the multitudes that find and enter the strait gait. Truth is truth, not because it is held by the many and the mighty, but because it is truth. Neither our acceptance nor our rejection of Godâ€™s word determines its accuracy and truthfulness. It is not us who judge Godâ€™s word, it is Godâ€™s word which judges us.
2. Detect
The evil doer is sensitive to the same evil deeds in others. â€œIt takes one to know one.â€ The drug addict can easily spot drug addicts. The drug addict is quickly detected by the drug pusher. Evolutionists easily recognize disbelief in others.
3. Promote
Like Eve, the sinner is not content to sin alone. The sinner will always justify and promote his sin. At first, sin is committed in secret, but over time sin hardens us and we become increasingly bold and defiant in justifying our sin.
Since Satan misquoted Scripture (Mt 4:6) it is not surprising that his agents do the same. Many wrested Scripture to their own destruction (2Pet 3:16) and this will continue to the end of time.
It is a basic pattern of Satan to make the simple seem complicated. There is nothing complicated about understanding the creation account unless we are â€œwise above that which is written.â€
In Genesis 1 God gave us the absolutely accurate history of the creation of our world. The details are further amplified in Genesis 2 (and in other places of Scripture). There are not two conflicting accounts. Only the criminally negligent or the willfully blind could possibly fail to see this.
4. Confederate
Evil doers always finds other evil doers who share in their evil. These band together in bundles (Mt 13:30, Ps 83:5, Rev 17:13)
The drug addict always finds drug sellers. So the deceived apostate “Adventist” evolutionist finds others who will share and promote his view.
We gain comfort and sympathy in our sin from others who share our views or at least lack conviction of the truth. But the day hastens when â€œthe hail will sweep away the refuge of lies) (Isa 28:18) that we rely upon. Too late we will discover that our subterfuge will not help us. And with every abominable thing we will discover that outside the Holy City will be â€œwhoever loves â€¦ a lieâ€ (Mat 22:15).

28 “”Be on guard for yourselves and for all the flock, among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the church of God which He purchased with His own blood.
29 “”I know that after my departure savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock;
30 and from among your own selves men will arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after them.

31 “”Therefore be on the alert, remembering that night and day for a period of three years I did not cease to admonish each one with tears.
32 “”And now I commend you to God and to the word of His grace, which is able to build you up and to give you the inheritance among all those who are sanctified.

By way of “Exhibit 1” – in reference to Paul’s prediction above –
Spectrum recently released an article claiming that all SDA doctrine should be tested by the Bible EXCEPT Fundamental Belief 6.

As Christians we believe that all doctrine is to be tested sola scriptura and not by simply eisegeting what you “wish the Bible said” into the text, or “evolutionist doctrines on origins NEED the Bible to say”.

For “some” the idea that the Bible might not match the ever changing demands of evolutionist demands for a doctrine on origins is “a bad thing”.

For others – it is pretty much “obvious” that the Bible doctrine on orgins is nothing like “birds come from reptiles over a few million years of time”.

But intellectual honesty in Bible doctrine begins with “What does the bible say” long before you get to “yes but my belief in evolutionism and the doctrine on origins that I find there require that I bend the Bible”.

The predictable fact that those two doctrines are “different” is not an excuse to bend-the-bible to fit evolutionism or to engage in a scorched-bible model of rendering scripture or belief in scripture in a sacrifice-all effort to accomodate the alchemist myth and proven blunder, fraud and fiction of evolutionism.

Praise the Lord for the courageous brorhers who are upholding the banner of truth in these last days. But there is something that I cannot really understand: Is la Sierra University an Adventist Institution, funded by Church money? Or is it an independant Institution financially and academivally. The Church authority should take appropriate disciplinary steps against all teachers of heresy. If the newly elected G.C. president really wants Revival and Reform he should not be afraid to be a Nehemia and to throw out all Tobijahs and their utensils in the House of the Lord otherwise he will be held accountable for not doing so and he won’t be able like Nehemaiah to ask the Lord ” Remember me” Nehemiah 13: 1 – 9,26 – 31.
I do not have the email address of Elder Wilson, could soemebody please forward him a copy of this comment and give him my email address if he should deem necessary to comment on this. I pray daily that the Lord will fill him with Spirit ot discernment in these troubluous last days.

Praise the Lord for the courageous brorhers who are upholding the banner of truth in these last days. But there is something that I cannot really understand: Is la Sierra University an Adventist Institution, funded by Church money? Or is it an independant Institution financially and academivally. The Church authority should take appropriate disciplinary steps against all teachers of heresy.

Cuniah, We have been asking those in “authority” (LSU Board, which has the authority) ) to take some “steps” but so far the only steps they have taken is to step home without doing anything!

Genesis 1 clearly states that God created the universe in six ordinary length days.

While the word “day” has a variety of possible meanings, the meaning intended by an author is always specified by the context. The context in Genesis 1 is “evening and morning, one day.” The author clearly intended the word to mean an ordinary-length day. The Ten Commandments, which God wrote down with His own finger in stone, confirm this conclusion. The Fourth Commandment says that the Israelites were to observe the Sabbath as a memorial to the fact that God created the universe in six days.

Jesus was totally committed to the authority of the Scriptures, particularly the writings of Moses (which begin with Genesis), and He said that we must do so too.

Jesus said that if we do not believe what Moses wrote we could not believe what He said, because Moses wrote about Him. Jesus claimed to be the God whom Moses wrote about, and He claimed that the writings of Moses provided the foundation for His incarnation, atonement and resurrection. Jesus made it a condition of Christian discipleship that we believe what He says.

The honor and glory of God as Creator are revealed in His work of creation.

God defines himself throughout the Bible as the Creator. His honor and glory are shown forth in His work of creation, so it is logically absurd for Christians to worship God as Creator, but then to refuse to believe what He says on the subject of creation.

Genesis 1 clearly states that God created the universe in six ordinary length days.While the word â€œdayâ€ has a variety of possible meanings, the meaning intended by an author is always specified by the context.The context in Genesis 1 is â€œevening and morning, one day.â€The author clearly intended the word to mean an ordinary-length day.The Ten Commandments, which God wrote down with His own finger in stone, confirm this conclusion.The Fourth Commandment says that the Israelites were to observe the Sabbath as a memorial to the fact that God created the universe in six days.Jesus was totally committed to the authority of the Scriptures, particularly the writings of Moses (which begin with Genesis), and He said that we must do so too.Jesus said that if we do not believe what Moses wrote we could not believe what He said, because Moses wrote about Him.Jesus claimed to be the God whom Moses wrote about, and He claimed that the writings of Moses provided the foundation for His incarnation, atonement and resurrection.Jesus made it a condition of Christian discipleship that we believe what He says.The honor and glory of God as Creator are revealed in His work of creation.God defines himself throughout the Bible as the Creator.His honor and glory are shown forth in His work of creation, so it is logically absurd for Christians to worship God as Creator, but then to refuse to believe what He says on the subject of creation.

Jim, I don’t know where you live, but out here in California, we have some who have different views on what Genesis says. Liberals claim to have some different “interpretations” of those so-called “real,24 hour days.”

This is called postmodern “present truth” for all those SDA’s that believe in Ellen White and all those other old fashioned backwaters from the 19th century.

So Jesus said He believed in the literal Genesis story? He was simply, as Paul, Moses, and the rest of those old fogies, just a product of His paternalistic Jewish culture. Or, as some say, He didn’t want to “upset the apple cart” and tell us the “real story” because we were too dumb to understand.

And, as far as God “defining Himself” through the Bible? Well, there are many other ways He “defines” himself, including “feelings” “worldly culture” and humanistic philosophy. And these may “trump” all that biblical stuff, mainly because it’s more “relevant” to us today.

The truth is that the Sabbath is so basic to a literal Creation week that it is impossible to ignore “SIX days you shall labor…for in SIX DAYS the Lord made” – is impossible to ignore, bend or mutilate. All one has to do is “Read”. The fact that in Genesis 1 each day is 1 “evening and morning” sequence and that in Gen 2:3 God “makes it a holy day” is all the worse for those intent on ignoring the meaning of the text.

But the same mind open to the fiction that “birds come from reptiles” will lend itself to the fiction that “six days you shall labor…for in six days the Lord Made” did not actually mean “six days” (As if Moses was a closet darwinist trying to hide darwinism under the cover of creationism).

LSU, by definition is an institution of higher learning. Where else is it more important than to have all theories present and accounted for. This is a place where “higher criticism” is quite acceptable, where all heterodox opinions should be freely expressed without the prejudice for fundamental belief with all its ignorance and bigotry aimed against free thought, even if that “free thought” does go against SDA pre-programing.
Saturday has nothing to do with creation week, and creation week is a later addition to the book of Genesis. Bible historians can tell you exactly when any particular passage got in the bible, and Genesis one through the first three verses of Genesis two is a much later addition than the story of creation as told in the second chapter of Genesis. Saturday is not the seventh day except on the roman calendar, and Jews did not observe Saturday for their seventh day until the tenth century AD, long after Christians began observing Saturday for the seventh day, simply because the Roman emperor in 321 AD declared Sunday to be the first day of the week. –DB

Saturday has nothing to do with creation week, and creation week is a later addition to the book of Genesis. Bible historians can tell you exactly when any particular passage got in the bible, and Genesis one through the first three verses of Genesis two is a much later addition than the story of creation as told in the second chapter of Genesis. Saturday is not the seventh day except on the roman calendar, and Jews did not observe Saturday for their seventh day until the tenth century AD, long after Christians began observing Saturday for the seventh day, simply because the Roman emperor in 321 AD declared Sunday to be the first day of the week. â€“DB

Please don’t tell me you’re a graduate of LSU, because your knowledge of history is, well, very interesting and creative indeed 😉

The Jewish Sabbath has been kept on the very same 7th-day of the week, recorded by the Jews, for centuries B.C.E. – at least 1,500 years before the birth of Christ.

â€œThe week of seven days has been in use ever since the days of the Mosaic dispensation, and we have no reason for supposing that any irregularities have existed in the succession of weeks and their days from that time to the presentâ€

Also, Constantine did not declare Sunday to be the first day of the week. It was already recognized as the first day of the week long before Constantine came on the scene. What Constantine did in 321 A.D. was to declare Sunday to be a new festival day. He issued a decree making Sunday a public festival throughout the Roman Empire. The day of the sun was reverenced by his pagan subjects and was honored by Christians; it was the emperor’s policy to unite the conflicting interests of heathenism and Christianity. He was urged to do this by the bishops of the early Christian church, who, inspired by ambition and thirst for power, perceived that if the same day was observed by both Christians and heathen, it would promote the nominal acceptance of Christianity by pagans and thus advance the power and glory of the church. While many God-fearing Christians were gradually led to regard Sunday as possessing a degree of sacredness, they still held the true Sabbath as the holy of the Lord and observed it in obedience to the fourth commandment.

The Sunday Law of Constantine (321 A.D.):

All judges and city people and the craftsmen shall rest upon the venerable Day of the Sun. Country people, however, may freely attend to the cultivation of the fields, because it frequently happens that no other days are better adapted for planting the grain in the furrows or the vines in the trenches. So that the advantage given by heavenly providence may not for the occasion of a short time perish.

Also, â€œIt is to be noted that in the Christian period, the order of days in the week has never been interrupted. Thus, when Gregory XIII reformed the calendar in 1582, Thursday, 4 October was followed by Friday, 15 October. So in England, in 1752, Wednesday, 2 September, was followed by Thursday, 14 Septemberâ€

LSU, by definition is an institution of higher learning.Where else is it more important than to have all theories present and accounted for…

Dave, As Sean has already begun to state, your personal “interpretation” of history is not very accurate. Would you please tell us who espouses such a theory of the Sabbath at LLU? I could guess, but I won’t, since it might be censored.

We were discussing the LSU/Evolution problem in SS this past Sabbath. One of the class members stated that Evolutionism is every bit a religion just as Christianity, Buddhism, Satanism or any other belief system is. When one looks at it this way it is easier to understand why they will not give up their belief system. However a person cannot be true to more than one “religion” at any given time. So, those at LSU who are teaching and believers of Darwinian Evolution are not, in the truest sense of the word Adventists, no matter what they say. When they attempt to deceive anyone by putting up a front they are Adventists, good or otherwise, and just making use of academic freedom, are not true to either belief system.

Permit me to take this one step further. Consider this:We were discussing the LSU/Evolution problem in SS this past Sabbath. One of the class members stated that Evolutionism is every bit a religion just as Christianity, Buddhism, Satanism or any other belief system is. When one looks at it this way it is easier to understand why they will not give up their belief system. However a person cannot be true to more than one â€œreligionâ€ at any given time. So, those at LSU who are teaching and believers of Darwinian Evolution are not, in the truest sense of the word Adventists, no matter what they say. When they attempt to deceive anyone by putting up a front they are Adventists, good or otherwise, and just making use of academic freedom, are not true to either belief system.Something to think about,Bill

You’re absolutely correct, Bill. Evolution is a “worldview” just as emotionally held as Christianity or other religions. The choice between choosing God’s Truth over humanistic philosophy is a choice we all have to make.

@Ron Stone M.D.:
The first-day Saturday:
Egyptian astronomers, who of course believed that there were only seven planets that revolved around the earth, first developed the planetary seven-day week. From the most remote to the nearest in this order were Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Sun, Venus, Mercury, and the moon. (Using the names we call them now). These planets revolved around the earth every 24 hours. The first planet to come up in the sky was Saturn; the day of the week was named after the planet that presided over its first hour. After each successive seventh hour, i.e., the eighth, fifteenth, and twenty-second hour, respectively, was presided over by the planet Saturn. Jupiter then governed the twenty-third hour, the twenty-fourth hour by Mars. The first hour of the next day was presided over by the Sun, the next â€œplanetâ€ in that order. The second day of the planetary week was thus named Sunday. In the same order of reckoning the moon presided over the third day (moon day), Mars over the fourth day, Mercury over the fifth, Jupiter over the sixth, and Venus over the seventh, then Saturn again took over the first hour of the beginning of the next week.
The Romans adopted the same seven-day weekly cycle with the same nomenclature, but they didnâ€™t know why these days were named after the order of the planets. In the Roman mind these were gods, and the days were named after the gods, therefore the greatest god should rule the first day.
As a result of the change of having the first day of the week begin on the day of the Sun, Sol Invictus (being declared as the first and foremost god of the whole world); Saturday (dies Saturni } then became the seventh day of the Roman week rather than the first day as it had always been up to that time.
The sixth day of our current week (Friday) was named dies Veneris, day of Venus because Venus was the planet that ruled that day. The Teutonic tribes of the north knew nothing of the reason for naming the day, just like nobody knows this stuff now. They supposed the Romans named the days to honor their gods, just like people assume nowadays. The wife of their god Odin (Woden) was Frigg or Frigga. She was the goddess of marriage, and knew the fate of all men. Later some of the Teutonic tribes had a goddess of a similar name Freya who was the equivalent of the Roman goddess of love, Venus. Old English literature calls her Freo, of which the possessive is Frige. The name of the day of Venus (seventh day of the week) was changed to Frigedaeg (Freoâ€™s day) in Old English, in honor of their goddess of love, just as, the Romans did with dies Veneris.

Lordâ€™s Supper occurs on the eve before the fourteenth day of the month (full moon) following the spring equinox, the 14th of Abib (a word meaning spring) or Nissan 14, as the month is called. This is the day that Jesus was said to have been crucified, just before the Passover, which occurred, and always occurs, on the fourteenth day of the month, the Passover Sabbath. This then means that Jesus was crucified on the 13th, the day before the Sabbath, but this cannot be the case if he ate the Passover supper which occurs on the evening at sunset while the full moon is rising! The reason for this discrepancy is that there are two days of Sabbath at this time, and he rested through both of them, and rose on the third day, just as the scriptures predicted he would! There is the Passover Sabbath and the beginning of the Feast of unleavened bread; which immediately follows the Passover. If I am wrong about this please send me an email and tell me so.

At that time in history Friday was the seventh day of the Roman week, (Saturn was the first planet, Saturday the first day) but the Jews did not recognize nor reverence the days of the Roman week.

Mark 16:2 And very early in the morning the first of the week, they came unto the sepulcher at the rising of the sun.
The first of the week began not on Sunday but on whatever day followed the Sabbaths. Then there came another six days to labor to do all the work necessary to prepare for the final Sabbath day of the month. On the eve of the 21st day of the month the final Sabbath began, and continued through the 22nd until evening. This was an evening of reflection and thanksgiving for all that the Lord has done the previous three Sabbaths. This is a day for counting your blessings. On the first day following this last Sabbath, the first day of the last week of the month, the tithes are calculated and offerings for the poor are laid aside. On this Sabbath eve the half moon rises at midnight, this time it is on its wane, this is the last quarter before another new moon, or new month. The week following is another new moon, which heralds a new month and a new Sabbath cycle.
The Jewish Sabbath is a monthly event beginning at the New Moon and is celebrated every seventh-day, regardless of what day of the week it is on the Roman calendar. It is true that they did not accept nor use the Roman calendar until required by the Romans. This has been the custom since the fifteenth day (full moon) of the second month after leaving Egypt in the wilderness of Sin. (Wilderness of the Moon) Sinai (Mountain of the moon)
Yes it is a true fact of history that they observed their Sabbaths according to the changing of the moon–the bible says so, and so does EGW.

Here is a day given, and the Lord declares it shall be observe throughout your generations “for a perpetual covenant” (Exodus. 31:16), as a sign of obedience and loyalty to God, and yet it is so obscured no one can tell when it comes! Oh, what fallacies men will resort to in order to carry out False theories. The Lord pronounced His blessing upon all who keep holy the Sabbath day. His commandments are given to a thousand generations, and when that period is ended the redeemed host shall be in the city of God and observe the Sabbath there, and especially come up to worship God from Sabbath to Sabbath and from one new moon to another. â€”MANUSCRIPT 173, 1897,PP 4-5 (DIARY OF ELLEN G. WHITE, JUNE 1897

Creation week:
Today we understand many things that were unknown to our ancestors who wrote the above words. We understand the enormity of the universeâ€”the enormous quasars, nebulae, and galaxiesâ€”unimaginable back in the day Moses handed down the oral tradition to the Children of Israel. –Does that make it not true? No, truth is progressive; the explanation of creation by Moses was simple and direct. In the beginning God created it all, and the earth was a part of it all. The earth was here without any form and was void of any kind of created thing, but it was here from the beginning. So were the sun, moon, and all the quasars, nebulae, galaxies and everything in the heavens that were made by all the Elohim (gods) that created all thatâ€”before creation week.

We should not deny the truth of Scripture simply because it leaves out things that the people of that day would not comprehend anyway, but today we are searching for hid treasureâ€”what was it really?

My cousin asked me did I believe in creation week, I told him yes I do. I had not though about it much before but I have been thinking about it ever since. What exactly do I believe about creation week? What is reasonable to assume?
Is it reasonable to assume that the Elohim did make the world in six days and rested on the seventh? Of course God can do anything! God didnâ€™t even have to do it in six days, it could have been done all by a single command of course, and so then why did it take them six days?

Clue for a hidden truth:

Is the six days of creation a clue that could not have been understood back then?
If you are really searching for hidden truth you can easily find that the Bible does not call the creation day a literal 24 hour evening and morning as translated in our current day language. A seeker of truth will find that the Book of Genesis was written in three different languages over the course of several centuries and not written by Moses or King James.

The chapter in Genesis that tells the story of creation explains (in Hebrew) that creation took place in only one day.
Gen 2:4 (KJV) These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens…,

Notice that this day when the LORD GOD made the earth and the heavens is before Genesis 2:7 when they made man from the dust of the ground and breathed into him the breath of life.

You can see how it calls the six days of creation one long day. You can also compare this to what the Bible says about the seventh day. You donâ€™t find â€œevening and morningâ€ for the seventh â€œdayâ€ but four thousand years later the author of the book of Hebrews says it is still going on.

Heb 4:4 (KJV) For he spake in a certain place of the seventh day on this wise, And God did rest the seventh day from all his works.

Heb 4:5 (KJV) And in this place again, If they shall enter into my rest.

Heb 4:6 (KJV) Seeing therefore it remained that some must enter therein, and they to whom it was first preached entered not in because of unbelief:

We might conclude that if the seventh day of creation is still going on, that the other six days may have been eons, not days, thousands of years of creativeâ€”(that naughty word)–evolution!

2 Pet 3:8 (KJV) But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.

I do trust scripture completely; I just don’t truest the fundamentalist verbatim–word for word–mentality, knowing that scripture has gone through many changes and countless interpretations over the years. We are supposed to be educated people.

I just donâ€™t truest the fundamentalist verbatimâ€“word for wordâ€“mentality, knowing that scripture has gone through many changes and countless interpretations over the years. We are supposed to be educated people.

It is not the position of the Seventh-day Adventist Church that the Bible was inspired word for word.

Bill Eichner writes: “…So, those at LSU who are teaching and believers of Darwinian Evolution are not, in the truest sense of the word Adventists, no matter what they say. When they attempt to deceive anyone by putting up a front they are Adventists, good or otherwise, and just making use of academic freedom, are not true to either belief system.Something to think about…,”
Bill
Dear Bill; An Adventist by definition is one who believes in the advent. Whatever else they think, they are still Adventist, just as an evolutionist by definition believes in evolution. Whatever else he or she believes, therefore an Adventist can also be an evolutionists, but not an atheist.
A Seventh-day Adventist believes in the advent and the seventh-day, whether that seventh day is believed to be the seventh day of the Gregorian calendar or the Jewish seventh-day of the lunar cycle that does not recognize a fixed planetary week.
These are definitive nouns, not copyrightable titles. You can’t copyright the term “Christian” or “evolutionist” or “Adventist”, you either are or are not. You also can’t copyright the term “Seventh-day Adventist”; it is what you are or are not; although our “world church organization” has presumed to do exactly that. A Seventh-day Adventist is a definition of belief, whether you belong to a church that claims that title or not, there are many a good members of the SDA church who are neither Adventist by belief nor Sabbatarians by practice.

David, you’d best make a distinction between the first advent and the second. All Christians believe in the first advent, i.e., that Jesus Christ was God incarnate, come to earth, some 2000 years ago. Seventh-day Adventists give special emphasis to the second advent or seond coming, and particularly the nearness of the second advent as indicated by the now on-going investigative judgment in heaven. A pre-advent judgment is necessary because God will resurrect the saved dead (and the saved living will meet them in the sky, and go to heaven with them) at the time of the second advent. So it is the second Advent that is signified by the term “Adventist” in the name “Seventh-day Adventist.”

The overwhelmingly miraculous nature of the resurrection of the dead and other aspects of the 2nd advent/2nd coming/parousia are not consistent with the small, withered god of the theistic evolutionist, but then the “Seventh-day” part of our identity is more obviously inconsistent with long-ages evolutionism.